Czech National Social Party

The Czech National Social Party (CSNS) was a centrist political party in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic that was founded on 4 April 1897 by Vaclav Klofac. The party supported collectivizing by means of development, surmounting of class struggle by national discipline, moral rebirth, and democracy as the conditions of socialism, a powerful popular army, and other goals. From 1921, the party was in most government coalitions, and most of its Czech members joined the left-wing National Labor Party of Czechoslovakia after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, while most of its Slovak members joined the Slovak People's Party of Jozef Tiso. The party functioned in exile, with President Edvard Benes remaining its leader. The CSNS took part in the Czechoslovak Resistance movement during World War II, and the party resurfaced in 1945 as a member of the national front government. In 1948, after the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia's seizure of power, its anti-communist members were expelled for "fascist sympathies", and the party became a communist puppet. After the return to democracy in 1989, the party became a minor party, and it almost disappeared; in 2017, the only governmental representation that it held was 9/62,300 local council seats.